


Two-shot.

by ardenteurophile



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Discussion of character death, Gen, Gen Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-03
Updated: 2010-11-03
Packaged: 2017-10-13 01:20:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardenteurophile/pseuds/ardenteurophile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A post-Great Game take on The Final Problem. How Sherlock reacts to news of John's death, and the path it leads him onto.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two-shot.

**(A)**

High overlooking a valley somewhere in the mountains of Switzerland, Sherlock Holmes shivered against the cold and wrapped himself deeper into his coat and his thoughts.  He stared down at the waterfalls which threaded their way down the mountainside, spun through with tendrils of mist as the sun was yet to rise fully and warm up the air.  It was lonely up here, but strangely beautiful.  It had been several hours since he’d seen any sign of people or civilisation, though he didn’t for a minute try to fool himself that he was alone.  The knowledge of that fact was almost worth it, though, just for the view.

 John would have loved it, he thought, glancing at the space beside him.  It had been months now – six or seven, he guessed, though he’d lost track of time quite a while ago – and still he wasn’t used to the gap where his friend used to be.  It made him feel off-balance; off-kilter; as though the ballast that kept him anchored firmly to the ground was gone for good.  John should have been here at the end, he thought.  Deserved to be here at the end.

 “You were supposed to be here, John,” he told the empty air; his voice low and cracked.  It had been a while now since he’d had occasion to use it.

 Paradoxical, though, that, he considered: if John had still been here, then he’d have no reason to be here himself – not _here,_ not on this particular mountaintop, in this particular country.  If John were here, he would still be back in Baker Street, he supposed, still watching crappy telly and squabbling over the takeaway.  Still dashing through those winding streets will the thrill of the chase thrumming in his veins, before stopping, both of them exhilarated and laughing and _alive._ There was no thrill in this particular chase anymore; only the slow and grinding wait for resolution.

 The memory of 221b filled him with a bittersweet longing, and for a moment he considered simply turning and leaving, running back to London.  There was no point though, he remembered, steeling himself.  221b Baker Street would still be there, but it wasn’t his home anymore.  Couldn’t be his home anymore, not without Doctor John Watson in it.

He closed his eyes for a moment, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath. He had tried not to think about it, for months now; hadn't allowed himself to feel it, not since those first days of raging and screaming against the world. Had made himself concentrate on the job at hand. _Rache (n.),_ he thought twistedly, forcing himself into remembering his first ever case with John despite the dull ache it produced in his chest. _A Study in Pink._ The first time he had met him: mousy, unassuming, brave, dull, comfortable, wonderful John. They had met, one chance day in January, and then the very next day he had shot a man for him. It was time that he returned the favour.

Cautiously, he let himself remember that day all those months ago, allowing himself to feel those surging emotions again for once, reshaping them and redirecting them into the form of his revenge. Because he was angry; he was oh, so very angry, and all his capacity for mercy had died along with John Watson. That day all those months ago, all the way back in London, next to a swimming pool.

He had awakened in his own bed.

 _Darkness. Warmth. Material: soft, cotton, a little scratchy in places. Not dead, then. Alive. Awake. Musty, slight chemical traces, coffee. His own room. Listen: traffic, birds, slight movement downstairs. Breathing, in the room. His own, shallow. And another. John? John. A bomb. A bomb, a pool, chlorine, John, a gun, scorching, crumbling, debris, John, heat, running, fear. John._

 _His eyes flew open._

 _"John."_

 _Mycroft's face appeared above him, his brow creased with concern._

 _"Mycroft," he corrected, then waved his hand in front of Sherlock's face, "How many fingers am I holding up?"_

 _Sherlock batted him away, then held up two of his own, "How many fingers am_ I _holding up?"_

 _Mycroft sat back in his chair by the bed, looking satisfied._

 _"Well, you seem as childish and abrasive as ever, so I'll assume your mental faculties remain intact."_

 _Sherlock himself wasn't quite as convinced of as much; his head felt full of cotton wool and his ears were ringing. Damaged, he thought dimly, most likely from the bomb. There was something important..._

 _"Bomb," he said urgently, his voice rough fromwhat he surmised must be smoke inhalation, "John, Moriarty. What happened?"_

 _Mycroft swallowed, looking as close to uncomfortable as Sherlock had ever seen him._

 _"The whole place came down; I had just arrived outside after seeing the note on your website and saw the explosion. You only survived because John had tackled you sideways into the water. Moriarty... fled, through the back entrance."_

 _Sherlock growled in the back of his throat._

 _"We'll catch up with him again later," he said._

 _"Easier said than done, I'm afraid," said Mycroft, "My sources say he's on a train to the continent as we speak."_

 _Sherlock nodded._

 _"And John? Is he upstairs, or-"_

 _"He's at the hospital, Sherlock," Mycroft said, his voice reluctant._

 _"He sustained injuries, then," he concluded. That made sense; John would have been more in the line of the bomb._

 _"Sherlock-"_

 _"Come to think of it, why aren't I at the hospital? Not that I want all those check-ups, pointless-"_

 _"Sherlock."_

 _Mycroft's face was pained, floating above him like the moon when it was low in the sky. He had always thought Mycroft had quite a lunar face, he thought hazily, almost giggling. He supposed that he must have been given something for the pain that he could still vaguely feel in his leg. Morphine, probably._

 _"I'm sorry, Sherlock."_

 _Sherlock frowned, his eyes narrowing as he looked up at his big brother without comprehension._

 _"Wh-" he began, before his eyes widened suddenly as he recognised the euphemism. Sorry._ Sorry. _But it couldn't be, couldn't be, Mycroft had to mean something else. Had to, couldn't possibly mean that, because that could not have happened - he, Sherlock Holmes, would not have allowed that to happen._

 _"John," he breathed softly, the single syllable dripping with agony._

 _Mycroft's brow creased with dreadful, horrifying pity, and Sherlock felt his stomach contract at the confirmation, his world lurching sideways.  His breath felt trapped in his chest, as though there wasn’t enough room for it; too many bones and skin in the way, too much ribcage all of a sudden.  He gasped for air, the world turning slightly fuzzy at the edges, a roaring in his ears like the static from an untuned radio.  He was aware of a far-off, animal sort of cry, a wailing; the part of his brain still capable of deduction wandered off to identify a source for it, and reported with some surprise that it was coming from his own mouth._

 _Dead._

The next few days were a blur, after that; he knew he had thrown himself out of bed, run up to John’s room as if he’d find some sort of answer, and found nothing; only John’s few belongings, all of which seemed to be staring at him accusingly.  Mycroft had stayed, forcing him to eat, trying to force him to talk - both things which Sherlock had felt incapable of.  He felt trapped inside his own head, unable to focus on any data from external sources.  He was grateful for Mycroft’s presence, though: fending off the worried calls and texts from the Yard, keeping the world at bay until he was ready to rejoin it.  _This was mourning_ , Mycroft had explained, patronisingly; _things will get better over time_.  Sherlock had just shaken his head.  How could things ever get better, when he knew that he was the cause of this?  That he hadn’t saved him?  That he would _always_ know that, in every single second; couldn’t just delete it or forget it or hide it away in his mind like a normal person.

But he wasn’t so self-loathing as to think that he was the _only_ cause of this, or even the primary one, for that matter.  No, he _never_ forgot that, through the grief-stricken blur of the next few days, until one day he opened eyes that were no longer filmed over with tears, but were hard and sharp and burning with purpose.

 _“I have to follow him.”_

 _Mycroft started from his vigil beside the bed, and regarded Sherlock with concern, as though he had been waiting for this._

 _“Follow John? Oh, Sherlock-”_

 _“Not John,” he said, wincing a little as he said the name,_ “Moriarty.”

 _“Ah,” Mycroft had said, “Yes. Yes, you do. I’ve been waiting for you to come round to the idea.  He… cannot be allowed to continue.”_

 _Sherlock growled in reply._

 _“He won’t be.  Anything else, I’d have let him run.  Not this.”_

 _Mycroft had nodded, as thought this confirmed something for him._

 _“I can get you an itinerary of his movements, as far as we know them, since he left England.  We don’t know everything, though; he’s good, Sherlock, very good.  This will be neither quick nor simple.”_

 _“Good,” Sherlock said, hoping that it was difficult; difficult and horrible and tortuous; hoping that he could give his life to just this, just this, as John had done without questioning, and perhaps forget the emptiness beside him even as he avenged it._

 _“No one must know where you are going. You mustn’t be tracked by Moriarty’s people, or you’ll never catch up.”_

 _“There’s no one else left who will care, anyway, now,” he spat, viciously.  Mycroft patted his shoulder heavily, his expression looking somewhat pinched around the edges._

 _“I’ll get you a new phone, new number, untraceable, so you can send word back to me if you need anything.”_

 _Sherlock nodded. He didn’t want that old phone back, anyway; not with John’s number on it, not with John’s texts on it.  Ghosts.  He didn’t want any of this, anymore._

 _“Tell Mrs Hudson to re-let 221b,” he said, his voice breaking a little.  Mycroft’s eyes widened, “I won’t be able to afford the rent whilst I’m away anyway.”_

 _Mycroft narrowed his eyes, and sat back in his chair._

 _“I will, though. You can decide when you get back.”_

 _“I’ve decided.  Who says that I will get back, anyway?” Sherlock said, unsure as to whether he even wanted to if he could._

 _“You can decide when you get back,” Mycroft repeated, firmly._

Sherlock clenched his fists, filling himself up once more with the rage and resolve that he’d felt in that moment.  It had been his constant companion through the last few, painfully slow months; reminding him of his cause whenever he felt that he just wanted to give up - go home, give in, give in to sleep, give in to drugs, give into anything that would provide him with just a little respite.

He wondered briefly whether anyone would mourn him, as he had mourned John.  Lestrade? Mrs Hudson? His brother?  And yet, they were safer without him, and this game that he had played with Moriarty had gone on long enough.

 _Time to be go and be a hero._

“Heroes don’t exist, John,” he told the air, although he had long suspected that this initial conclusion of his had in fact been erroneous.  He hadn’t been in possession of all the data at that point.  He suspected now that there were such things as heroes, and furthermore, that they drank copious amounts of tea and wore ridiculously shapeless woolly jumpers and flung themselves into the paths of bombs for frankly incomprehensible reasons.

He pulled the phone from his pocket and fired off a final text to Mycroft.  Amazing signal here, he thought drily, despite the remoteness of the area.  He pocketed it and stared down into the valley below him once more, picking out the largest waterfall in his line of sight. _Der Reichenbachfall,_ according to his map of the mountains.  That was the one.

He pulled his coat around himself once more and set off towards it and towards the man that he knew was waiting there, eclipsed by the spray.  Above him, the sun finally poked its head over the crest of the mountain, piercing through the mist and lighting his path onward.

 **(B)**

Mycroft Holmes let himself into in 221b Baker Street, his footsteps echoing eerily as he made his way up the 17 steps, along with the tap-tap-tap of his umbrella on the floor.  It wasn’t the first time he’d been back here since Sherlock had left, but the silence still disturbed him.  At first he had thought - well, how lovely for Mrs Hudson at least, not to have to put up with strange explosions and crashes.  That was until he’d bumped into her in the hallway, and she’d fixed him with an accusing gaze before turning away haughtily and sweeping back inside her own rooms.

Pushing open the door into the upstairs flat itself, the room was almost exactly as it had been when Sherlock left it, with the exception of a few of the more unsavoury experiments which had been judged as posing a health hazard and cleared away.  Other than that, you could almost believe that he’d simply popped out on the trail of some criminal, or (more unlikely) to the supermarket.  It was as if time had just stood still.

The effect was by no means unintentional, of course.

“Mycroft.”

Mycroft spun lightly on the ball of his foot, and regarded the man on the sofa.

“John.”

He smiled tightly and came further into the room, perching on the edge of the sofa. 

“Haven’t seen you for a while,” said John Watson.  He was slumped on the battered old armchair as though he were a part of it, one hand slung over the arm, the other clutching his old cane.

His current cane.

“Yes, well,” said Mycroft, clearing his throat, “I can’t quite say the same thing about you.”

John glanced up at him, no curiosity in his eyes.

“I figured you’d still have surveillance on me.  I don’t see what business of yours I am, these days,” he said, the barest hint of anger in his voice.

“I worry about you,” said Mycroft, “Constantly.”

He knew exactly what his words would remind John of; was rewarded by a look of slight hurt before that too disappeared beneath the mask of indifference.

“So what.”

“I can get you a new job, John.  Just say the word.  I can get you your old job back, if you’d prefer – there was a nice girl there, wasn’t there, what was her name?  Mary?  Susie?”

“Sarah,” said John, running the word around his mouth as though it were unfamiliar to him, then shaking his head, “What do I need a job for? You’re paying all the rent for the flat. God knows why.”

“Company. Activity,” said Mycroft, waving one hand expansively, “Something other than this passivity.  You’re a doctor, John, I know you like to feel needed-”

John flinched as though he’d been slapped.

“Needed,” he repeated, bitterly, “Yeah, that’s right.”

“Well, if you won’t do it for yourself, do it for Mrs Hudson.  You’re upsetting her,” Mycroft said, his voice gentle but chastising, “Not eating properly, barely leaving the house.  Limping again.  Sitting in that chair for hours-”

“It is none,” John repeated, glaring at him as though he could will him gone with his eyes, “of your business.  Dammit, Mycroft, _I_ am none of your business.”

“You are Sherlock’s business, and so you are mine,” Mycroft replied in a clipped voice.  John raised his eyebrows, let out a sour laugh.

“Sherlock’s business. Yes, well. Perhaps I thought I was, once, but we all know how that turned out.  He left me behind.  Perhaps it’s time you did the same.”

Mycroft shifted uncomfortably in his seat.  He sighed, pulled his phone out of his pocket to check it. _No new messages._

“You’ve heard from him,” said John, finally, “I assume that’s why you’re here?”

 “Yes. He found him,” he said, “Moriarty.” 

John swung round towards him, interested in spite of himself, his eyes showing the anxiety he wouldn’t allow himself to voice.

“Where,” he breathed, “What happened?”

Mycroft flicked down his inbox to his last, brief missive from Sherlock.

“He caught up with him by Reichenbach Falls.  That’s in Switzerland.  Moriarty had known he was on his trail for a few weeks; I think he’d decided to force an encounter, end things for good,” he said.

John stared at him.

“For g- Mycroft, _what did he say?”_

Reaching out, he’d grabbed Mycroft’s phone from his hands and scrolled down the text message, his face blanching as he did so.

 _Well, big brother, it looks like this is it. I’ve finally tracked M to Der Reichenbachfall. He’s waiting for me now. Rest assured that London will be safe from him in future.  I’m afraid I can’t say for sure that I will see you again. Give my regards to Mummy.  
Switzerland is beautiful. I wish John could have seen it. But here I am, alone at the end. The way things were always supposed to be. SH_

John stared down at the floor, not looking up to meet Mycroft’s eyes, his grip on the phone so white that his knuckles were whitening.

“So is that it.  That’s the last you heard from him?” he said, his hand shaking slightly.  Mycroft didn’t reply.

“Mycroft,” he said, his voice dangerous, “ _Is that the last you heard from him?”_

“That’s the last I heard from him.”

John made a sudden movement as though he had been about to strike him and then thought better of it.  He pulled himself up out of his chair, instead, and limped over to stare out of the window.

“And now you’re just... here,” he said, his voice low and barely controlled, “Just _sitting_ here as though everything’s normal, as though everything’s fine, and you _don’t even know whether he’s dead or alive?!”_

Mycroft winced, turning away from John’s gaze.

“Please, don’t presume for a moment that I don’t care, Doctor Watson. I have all the people that the government can spare in Switzerland at this very moment, trying to work out what happened.”

John drew breath, shakily, and collapsed back into his chair.

 “I should have been there with him,” he muttered, “Whatever happened.  He shouldn’t have been alone.”

“We’ve been through this, John, exactly as I told you when you woke up in that hospital bed.  He didn’t feel he could take you with him, not after what happened at the pool,” Mycroft said, his voice smooth as silk.

“And you don’t think I should have been a part of that discussion?! You just thought you could both choose what was best for me,” John snapped, “I can’t believe you-”

“You were unconscious for weeks, John.  We didn’t have the time to spare.  And you were a liability.  A distraction. A weakness.”

He scoffed and shook his head, turning away from Mycroft to stare at the wall.

“ _His_ weakness,” Mycroft went on.

John ignored him, but a muscle tightened in his cheek.

“As to Switzerland.  I have confirmed visual accounts of both my brother and James Moriarty heading up towards the Reichenbach Falls; they definitely both made it up there.”

John had closed his eyes, his expression pained, as though he were envisaging the scene.

“Visibility was not great; it was early, the mountains were still covered in mist.  There’s every chance they could have come back from the Falls without anyone seeing them.”

John opened his eyes to take in Mycroft’s face, and shook his head.

“You don’t think that they did,” he stated.

Mycroft sighed and pursed his lips.

“I do not think that they did.  There are signs of a struggle on the lip of the path overhanging the top of the waterfall.  We have tried every method available to contact or trace Sherlock’s phone – a phone designed with our own tech – to no avail.  It is dead.”

John flinched at that word, and clenched his hands together.

“But?” he said.

“No bodies have been recovered,” Mycroft said, “But we did find his coat.”

John let out a muffled noise of horror.

“Sherlock’s coat.”

Mycroft nodded, slowly.

“But he’d never go anywhere without-”

He stopped, as though he didn’t trust his voice to take him any further, and just sat for a few moments, digging his fingers into and out of the arm of the sofa.  Mycroft waited for him to compose himself, tracking his symptoms mentally as he did so: breath erratic and shuddering, a slight shake to his legs that he was trying to control, elevated pulse, lacrimation.  Fascinating.

“So what you’re saying is... we have no way of knowing whether he’s alive or dead?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Mycroft, examining the end of his umbrella, “But rest assured that I will be the first person to hear of it if either he, or Moriarty, are sighted.”

“Thanks.”

Mycroft gazed at him curiously for a moment, then stood suddenly and made his way to the door.  He had just opened it to leave, when John spoke again behind him, his voice tinged with despair.

“Mycroft.  If he were still alive...”

Mycroft Holmes turned back to the man, as run-down and uselessly beige as the armchair he was sat on, but who had somehow been important enough to his brother for him to risk everything.

“Yes?”

“Well, if he were still alive,” John said, his voice breaking slightly, “He’d come back here, wouldn’t he? I mean...”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow, questioning.

“I mean... he knows that I’m waiting for him, doesn’t he? So... he’d come back.”

Mycroft gazed over at him, something a little like pain in his eyes, and smiled tightly.

“Of course.”

And he left, letting the door close behind him on John Watson and his empty house.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Sherlock is the property of the BBC, Mark Gatiss & Steven Moffat. Sherlock Holmes is public domain. My thanks to Arthur Conan Doyle.


End file.
